We introduce two generalizations of synchronizability to automata with
transitions weighted in an arbitrary semiring K=(K,+,*,0,1). (or equivalently,
to finite sets of matrices in K^nxn.) Let us call a matrix A
location-synchronizing if there exists a column in A consisting of nonzero
entries such that all the other columns of A are filled by zeros. If
additionally all the entries of this designated column are the same, we call A
synchronizing. Note that these notions coincide for stochastic matrices and
also in the Boolean semiring. A set M of matrices in K^nxn is called
(location-)synchronizing if M generates a matrix subsemigroup containing a
(location-)synchronizing matrix. The K-(location-)synchronizability problem is
the following: given a finite set M of nxn matrices with entries in K, is it
(location-)synchronizing?
Both problems are PSPACE-hard for any nontrivial semiring. We give sufficient
conditions for the semiring K when the problems are PSPACE-complete and show
several undecidability results as well, e.g. synchronizability is undecidable
if 1 has infinite order in (K,+,0) or when the free semigroup on two generators
can be embedded into (K,*,1).Comment: In Proceedings AFL 2014, arXiv:1405.527